Tucker Carlson got a journalistic scoop. A pretty big scoop, in fact. The Fox News commentator this week showed excerpts from 41,000 hours of U.S. Capitol Police security tape video recorded during the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the capitol. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy gave the recordings to Carlson.

Unlike many “exclusives,” this one is absent the anonymous sources that, perhaps more than anywhere else, lubricate the gears of journalism in Washington, D.C.

Both McCarthy and Carlson acknowledged what happened.

This episode has prompted critics, on both sides of the political aisle, to complain about McCarthy’s favoritism.

But of course that’s the very nature of exclusives — the provider of the information, McCarthy in this case, gives preferential treatment to one media outlet.

That McCarthy, a Republican, would choose Fox News, is hardly surprising. The cable network, and in particular Carlson and hosts of other commentary shows, are unabashed GOP partisans.

Critics have also complained about how Carlson has used the footage to downplay the severity of the riots. Carlson said during his show on Monday, March 6 that the people who entered the capitol were “sightseers” rather than “insurrectionists.”

Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, the Democrat who chaired the House Jan. 6 Committee investigating the riot, called McCarthy’s decision to selectively release the security footage “a dereliction of duty.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called the Monday night Fox News episode from Carlson “one of the most shameful hours we have ever seen on television.”

This is predictable hyperbole.

But although McCarty isn’t guilty of dereliction of duty, he did show poor judgment. The Jan. 6 riots are of such significance, and the videos such an important record of what happened that day, that McCarthy — indeed, Congress — has an obligation to make the footage available to all Americans.

Although it’s understandable that McCarthy’s and Carlson’s political opponents would deride Fox News’ use of the videos as whitewashing intended to boost the candidacy of Donald Trump, those opponents hadn’t been pushing for complete transparency, either.

The only way to accomplish that is by providing the footage to the public, spared the clever editing of propagandists.

McCarthy said he would make the videos available to everyone “as soon as possible.”

The Jan. 6 commission could have avoided this dispute — and denied Carlson his scoop, which no doubt would have pleased Thompson, Schumer and many others — by releasing the videos. Considering how important that day was — Thompson, for instance, deemed it “one of the darkest days in the history of our democracy” — it’s appropriate to let Americans review the original footage rather than have it spoonfed to them by people such as Carlson, for whom the videos are merely raw material for constructing their own narratives.